Today's network providers offer many private network solutions to their customers. One such private network solution is a virtual private local area network service (VPLS). A VPLS network interconnects multiple customer sites such that the customer sites appear (at least from the customer's perspective) to be operating on the same local area network (LAN). A typical VPLS network includes a group of provider devices, such as a group of provider edge (PE) devices, forming the switching infrastructure of the VPLS network. Each customer site includes a corresponding customer edge (CE) device (e.g., such as a router, switch, etc.) to couple with a respective PE device to interconnect the customer site with the VPLS infrastructure. Data packets may then be exchanged between multiple sites via the CE and PE devices as if the multiple sites were operating on the same LAN.
Implementation of the VPLS infrastructure usually involves forming a full mesh of infrastructure signaling connections, known as “outer tunnels,” between the PE devices. Each actual Virtual Private Network (VPN) supported by the VPLS infrastructure is then implemented using a respective full mesh of VPLS traffic connections, known as “inner tunnels” or “pseudowires,” formed between the PE devices using the full mesh of outer tunnels. As such, in some example implementations, multiple full meshes of pseudowires may be carried by the full mesh of outer tunnels interconnecting the PE devices, thereby allowing a single VPLS infrastructure implementation to support multiple VPLS VPNs.
Conventional VPLS networks implemented according to today's industry standards require a full mesh of pseudowires between PE devices. A full mesh topology avoids the need to implement loop-breaking protocols, such as the spanning tree protocol (STP), etc., to prevent the forwarding loops that could occur if a partial mesh topology were used to provide full connectivity between all customer sites (e.g., via multi-hopping between PE devices). However, in some scenarios, the full connectivity between all customer sites provided by a full mesh topology is not required or even desired.